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Dingle Peninsula and the Slea Head Drive are said to be some of the most scenic in all of Ireland. We did not have the extra three and a half hours to do the full Slea Head Drive, but we did drive as far as the point to get a bit of the flavor for the area.
Dingle Peninsula starts just outside of Tralee so it was
very convenient as we started our morning.
Tralee was already bustling with people at 10am, but once to the other
side of the city, we had a leisurely drive without much in the way of other cars
until we arrive to the town of Dingle about an hour later.
Dingle is a town right on the waterfront and seemingly
caters largely to tourists. I’m sure the
folks living in this area also come into town for their weekly shopping needs
but as we drove through, I couldn’t help but to feel most of the people were
not from the area. (Their driving is one
good clue about this!)
Leaving Dingle, we headed northwest to the Slea Head
Drive. It was amazing to me how the
land changed from largely grassy fields to that of stone and craggy rocks
seemingly unfit for any living creature!
There were numerous turnout points, as much for the views as to allow
for vehicles to pass one another on the often narrow one lane road.
At one point, we pulled over so that I could take some
photos of this lovely stream that ran right over the roadway. Within minutes, a huge motor coach tour bus
came lumbering up the hill to this hairpin curve. David had our rental car tucked in the corner
of the curve, which apparently was the bus’ swing point necessary to make the
sharp left turn. Within minutes it
became malfunction-junction with us, the bus, a small 12 passenger van filled
with tourists and a cyclist! As the bus
drive maneuvered his turn, the cyclist popped through heading downhill as the
bus went up.
I think we passed 20 to 25 cyclists during the Dingle
Peninsula & Slea Head part of our drive.
I couldn’t help but to think that these brave souls were really taking
their own lives into their hands with the narrow roads and tourists driving on
the opposite side of the road.
After the Slea Drive, we continued along the northern and
more scenic route on the Dingle Peninsula heading over the mountains there was
a nice vista with parking lot that allowed for viewing on either side of the
mountain; Dingle Harbor to the left and Tralee off in the distance to the
right. On the Dingle side of the parking
lot it was chilly and breezy . . . the Tralee side colder gale force winds made
it next to impossible to hold the camera still enough to get a decent
photo! It was amazing just how just 20
or 30 meters made such a difference.
Continuing along back towards Tralee, I was lamenting about
not getting many decent photo opportunities with sheep and was hoping for an
experience like we had in Scotland a few years back when we turned a curve and
there were sheep all over, in the road.
Not two minutes later, there was a ewe and her two lambs walking in the
middle of the narrow two lane road. As
we approached she led them over to the side of the road. David was able to pull the car over into a
driveway to allow me to get out and snap a few photos including this with one
of the young nursing.
Not too much longer we came upon signage for the Kilcummin
Strand, so we took the side trip down a narrow road. It didn’t stay “road” long as soon we were
traversing a very rough and rocky path that brought us right to the shore. There we watched the waves of Brandon Bay
splash on the sandy beach. We even
baja’ed with the rental car!
When we left there, we were back on our way to County Galway
and our next lodging destination in Recess.
This is probably as good a point as any to discuss the use of our Garmin
GPS. In anticipation of this trip last
fall, we went ahead and bit the bullet and bought a Garmin Nuvi 1450LTM from
Amazon.com for around $160. Given that
renting a unit through Thrifty Car Rental would be roughly $200 for our 15
days, a purchased unit was in our best interest.
We took it to the Florida Keys in November and I used it extensively
on my recent Montana trip. It was easy
to learn and very helpful in navigating unknown areas. Although at first, it had difficulty in
getting us out of our own neighborhood in the most efficient manner, we’ve
learned to adjust and communicate with “her”.
Geesh just want we need, another complex relationship to deal with.
So far on this trip, having the Garmin has been about 80%
useful and we’ve been glad to have it.
The other 20% however, has presented some challenges including our
arrival day when it apparently avoided the M50 toll road in favor of taking us
through Dublin City. We have now given
“her” a name . . . TOOTS. After all,
with David’s mom in the car with us, we can’t really call her what we’d like
too when she’s really taken us a drift from our intended route or destination.
During our drive on Saturday from County Kerry to County
Galway, I had frankly expected Toots to route us through Limerick as all of the
maps indicate that being the most direct routing from Tralee. Imagine our surprise when Toots blurts out
“Continue 1.5 kilometers and board ferry.”
We immediately had to stop and look at our OSI Ireland Atlas
just to see where Toots had brought us.
The ferry from County Kerry (Tarbert) to County Clare (Killmer) would be
a 20 minute ride, saving us some amount of time and petrol. More importantly as this point in our day, it
saved David having to drive through yet another busy city on a Saturday
afternoon. The fare was €18 for autos
plus passengers.
The ferry was actually an interesting experience with all
sorts of passengers using it to cross the River Shannon. Offloading from County Clare were mostly
autos, but there was a couple of fuel tankers, a large lorry and even a tractor
hauling a trailer. On our trip over to County
Clare, the most interesting passengers were a woman with her two well behaved
dogs and an RV that was apparently from Germany (based on the license plates on
the vehicle and the left-hand driving steering wheel).
I snapped this photo of the Clare Abbey as we entered the
M18 motorway near Ennis. It was a
drive-by snap taken with my Canon600SD pocket camera. I’ve been pretty happy with most of the
photos I’ve been able to take from the moving vehicle. Sometimes they are too blurred because
something in the foreground enters the frame, but given the very limited
availability of turnout spots to stop to frame a photo where you want to the
“drive-by” method of photography will have to suffice.
We arrived in Oughterard which is the last little village before
reaching our timeshare cottage in Recess, where we had dinner at Breathnach’s
Bar, a quaint local’s pub that served meals from morning (breakfast) to night
(lunch and dinner). Ellie
had been looking forward to Irish Stew and her she was able to fulfill that
wish. I had the fish & chips, while
David had the beef lasagna. Everyone
enjoyed their dinners and with full tummies, we head across the market square
to the grocery store to buy our provisions for the week.
By the time we reached our cottage, nightfall was
approaching. We dodged a pair of sheep
trotting up the lane towards our evening’s destination. Being an old rustic style cottage, the place
inside was unbearably cold and took more than two hours to warm up . . . but
that is for another (blog) time.
p.s. Sorry for the formatting but I'm at a pub and all of a sudden my connection's gone spotty. Until next time . . .
p.s. Sorry for the formatting but I'm at a pub and all of a sudden my connection's gone spotty. Until next time . . .
I'm so glad you got to get some photos of the sheep! So cute! I'd have been going crazy trying to get shots.
ReplyDeleteYour adventures with Toots sound so frustrating. Steve and I would probably be fighting after so many wrong directions. At least your end result (taking the ferry) wasn't bad.
Susan I am laughing, literally, as I reread your comment. Yes, trying to get the perfect shot was frustrating and for the most part, David was a real trooper about it (his mom too). No matter how many photos of "a sheep" you get, they all have their own unique characteristics . . . not to mention, so many of those I took were rushed, I didn't have great focus, composition or exposure. Thank goodness for P/S on the exposure issue.
ReplyDeleteAs for Toots, yes "the other woman" caused us to bicker a bit too. At one point I even quipped at him "Sure take 'her' word over mine!". LOL
It all worked out for the good and with a good atlas in the car, we were able to avert most horrendous outcomes.